The present invention relates to shaped food products, to packaged food articles including the product within a food package, and to their method of preparation. More particular, the present invention relates to extruded intermediate moisture food compositions especially dried fruit based food products in the form of a rod and a coil shaped strand wrapped around the rod and their method of preparation.
Wholesome snacks prepared from sweetened intermediate moisture shelf stable fruit or “fruit snacks” herein have expanded their popularity as food items. These dried fruit products are especially popular with children, particularly as snack or convenience foods. Their popularity has created a highly competitive marketplace. To appeal to children, the primary consumer of fruit snacks, manufacturers must introduce frequent changes to these products. New shapes, colors, textures and flavors are all avenues employed to successfully market these products. To create unique fruit snack shapes some manufacturers have changed their products to resemble popular characters from movies, television shows, cartoons, etc. To fully appreciate the need for new fruit snack shapes it is important to understand the wide variety of fruit snacks currently available.
Fruit snack compositions are sold in various physical forms and shapes such as: 1) in rolled sheet form; 2) in rolled strip form; 3) in string form mounted on a U-board; 4) soft center filled pieces, and 5) in gelled bite size pieces of various shapes or in gelled bite size piece form prepared by starch molding. The products are typically packaged in a moisture impermeable container such as flexible laminated film pouch fabricated to include a moisture barrier layer.
A particularly popular fruit snack available in rolled sheet form is sold under the Fruit Roll-Ups brand. Popular products in rolled strip form are sold under the Fruit By The Foot brand (see also, commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 5,455,053 entitled “Rolled Food Item” issued Oct. 3, 1995). Food products in string form mounted on a U-board were sold under the String Thing® mark while other products in bite size pieces of various shapes are sold under various brands. (See, for example, commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 5,942,268 entitled “Embossed Shape Food Item” issued Aug. 24, 1999 to Zimmermann et al.). Soft center filled piece products are described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,853,236 entitled “Dual Textured Food Piece Of Enhanced Stability Using An Oil In Water EMULSION” (issued Mar. 18, 1988 to Langler et al.) while apparatus and fabrication methods therefor are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,208,059 entitled “Dual Textured Food Piece Fabrication Apparatus” (issued Jun. 10, 1992 to Dubowik et al.).
In other variations, all or a portion of the fruit material is substituted with pure sugars. Such low fruit, high sugar formulations can be flavored with fruit flavors and/or other flavors. Within this general similarity, however, the particular methods of preparation, product formulations and apparatus used to prepare particular products vary considerably. Moreover, such variations are highly interdependent. Formulations and method steps suitable for one product form might or might not be suitable for another product form. Also, such products can be fortified with vitamins and minerals, especially calcium for growing children.
The variety of fruit snack shapes including popular movie and TV character shapes introduce an element of fun or fantasy to the eating experience described as play value. Play value as it relates to fruit snacks is the ability to manipulate a product in a fun or amusing manner. In its more imaginative form, play value entails shaping or coloring a product to represent an unusual object that relies upon the child to discover a use or method to disassemble the product before consumption. The more discoveries built into a fruit snack the greater the amusement and appreciation by children. The interaction of two or more food pieces is especially amusing when disassembly can easily be achieved and it yields an unexpected result.
Disassembly of fruit snacks would require an initial connection of fruit pieces that could be peeled apart easily. The concept of a peelable fruit snack is often associated with the removal of a support material or backing paper from the food item. The act of peeling away the food item before consumption adds immeasurable play value. Therefore, it is highly desirable to create fruit snacks composed of two or more individual fruit pieces that are peelably attached, meaning they easily disassemble by peeling away from each other.
Broadly, fruit snacks are prepared from wet mixtures of various fruit materials and added ingredients possibly with extra water that are cooked and worked at elevated temperatures and dried, if necessary, to desired moisture contents to form hot plastic paste or fluid formable fruit masses. The formable fruit masses are then formed into articles of desired shapes and sizes. The present invention is directed toward those articles and improvements in the methods of preparation of the hot plastic paste or fluid formable fruit masses and their formation into various suitable shaped and sized pieces particularly rod and coiled shaped strands.
In view of the current state of the intermediate moisture food art, there is a continuing need for new and improved shapes and methods for preparing intermediate moisture food products. The present invention satisfies this need by providing distinctively shaped food articles and their method of preparation such that they have inherent play value. In part, the present invention involves providing a hot viscous sweetened fruit fluid or slurry of increased solids intermediate product that nonetheless has lower or comparable viscosities that allows for successful forming into shaped intermediate moisture food products especially rod and coiled shaped products.
It has been surprisingly discovered that the above objectives can be realized and superior dried sweetened fruit products provided by extruding a plastic confectionery mass formed such as, from fruit based materials, supplemental ingredients and moisture.
It is thus an object of the present invention to provide a rod and coiled strand fruit snack where the coiled strand can be peeled away from the rod.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a rod and coiled strand fruit snack where the rod element and the coiled element are of approximately equivalent weights.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a rod and coiled strand fruit snack where the coiled element is approximately three times the length of the rod element.
It is still another object of the present invention to create a rod and coiled strand fruit snack utilizing extrusion technology to form the final shape of the product including winding the coiled strand around the rod element during manufacturing.